O.G.
The Hit
While it’s not unheard of in this project (see, Syndicate of Sound post), Shocking Blue’s “Venus” provides the rare case where it’s fair to ask people whether they heard their version first or Banarama’s. I know my answer - Banarama’s (also, The Divinyls on the one above) - and I refuse to feel shame about it…especially now that former, and now deceased drummer Cor van der Beek confessed that they “borrowed” (he straight-up says “stole”) the guitar riffs from The Beatles.
That said, I agree with van der Beek that Shocking Blue’s version beats all the others.
The song dropped in 1970 and shot to No. 1 on the Billboard in the States and blew up just about everywhere else besides. Anchored by an electric piano(/organ?) riff, a light funk shuffle rhythm plays under while curly-cue guitars hooks play over it: it’s music made for go-go dancing. And the vocals - imperious, almost demanding worship - roll it all together into a celebration of feminine power and/or mystique. “Goddess on the mountain-top/burning like a silver flame…”
The Rest of the Story
Because this was a case where I wanted so much more, I’m a little disappointed that there isn’t much available on Shocking Blue. Three of the four original members are dead - a couple of them for some time - and the only living member is, by now, quite old and “very media-shy.” That just leaves talking about what’s available.
A guitarist/sitarist named Robbie van Leeuwen started Shocking Blue in The Hague, The Netherlands (note: I often feel like I’m doing it wrong when I type “The” before “Netherlands”), with van der Beek (again, drums) in 1967 with Klassje van der Waal on bass, and a guy named Fred de Wilde on lead vocals. The band’s original line-up recorded a couple singles that no one remembers (but that one can look up at this point), and that was enough to move de Wilde to chuck the band for the Dutch Army. van Leeuwen found Mariska Veres singing in a club and the rest is history.
The more I read about musicians, the more I see that, for a lot of them, the story doesn’t get more complicated than, “we (or he or she) wrote a bunch of songs, and we toured a lot, probably more than we wanted to, but that's the job.” A vast under-belly teems and writhes under that bare narrative - e.g., as revealed in a 1988 (subtitled) interview with Veres and van der Beek, it’s a blur of hiring body-guards to keep half-crazed fans from grabbing you and or cutting your hair (or wig; fun fact, Veres wore wigs) in Japan - and a band doesn't draw half-crazed fans without a hit, and Shocking Blue did manage that. Some parts of the band lasted until 1971 - when van der Beek and van der Wal checked out - while van Leeuwen made it 1974; Veres was the last hold-out, and small wonder. If “Venus” is all you know, those vocals really catch your ear...
Going the other way, and the very real dearth of quotable information notwithstanding, that’s a U.S./UK-centric take on Shocking Blue, a band with multiple gold albums, at least one platinum album and a large haul of hits outside the U.S./UK market. For example:
“’Venus’ was followed by ‘Mighty Joe’ (flip-side ‘Wild Wind’) in 1969 and ‘Never Marry a Railroad Man’ (flip-side ‘Roll Engine Roll’") in 1970, both of which sold over a million records.”
But, wait, there’s more:
“Later songs – including ‘Hello Darkness,’ ‘Daemon Lover’ (1970), ‘Shocking You,’ ‘Blossom Lady’ and ‘Out of Sight, Out of Mind’ (1971), ‘Inkpot,’ ‘Rock in the Sea’ and ‘Eve and the Apple’ (1972) and ‘Oh Lord’ (1973) were successful in Europe, Latin America and Asia, but failed to chart in the U.S or U.K.”
Good material kept coming, in other words, even if the States and the UK didn’t click with it; personally, I rate three or four of those “later songs” higher than I rate anything that came before the Japan tour and the split. Moreover, it’s not as if Shocking Blue didn’t try to make it in the States. According to that 1988 interview with Veres, they spent three months in the States, but, the fact they bounced from venue-to venue instead of city-to-city says something about the reception they got.
Given where they ended up, it’s hardly surprising that most of the content on them comes from Europe - which, of course, means I can’t understand it. Still, it’s mostly Veres they talk to and she’s not the easiest interview (i.e., she’s clipped until she figured out the interviewer isn’t wasting her time) and, seeing that she passed before the internet really got busy (again, 2006). That said, if I had to recommend one source, it’d be that 1988 interview. It gives you sense of how it all ended up, if nothing else, even if that destination was neither glamorous nor happy: van der Beek speaks to the interviewer from a bare room, admitting to poverty and missing his car; Veres, meanwhile, undercuts (or is it expands?) the “Venus” mythos by reporting that she’s a home-body who never cared much for socializing, life at the center of attention or the lifestyle.
I’ve run into a handful of types as I’ve worked my way through this project - the broad breakdown runs between the aching-to-be-famous and the accidentally-famous - and, on thin evidence, Shocking Blue seems to file under the latter. What makes them rare is how big they got (big in Europe counts, dammit) combined with how readily they all walked away. van der Leeuwen put together a couple projects after (Galaxy-Lin and (separate band) The Motions), and Veres did some solo work, then some other stuff after, then she detoured into metal, if of the hair variety, etc. Rather than milk some kind of nostalgia circuit, Shocking Blue’s members just became different people. And that’s kinda wild.
About the Sampler
I linked to all the songs above so I could beg off going nuts with links down here. On the plus side, Shocking Blue gave me so much to work with. If you like: 1) “Venus”; 2) this era (60s-leaning-toward-70s), and 3) this sound, you will find songs you like across Shocking Blue’s seven albums - not counting their several live albums - and I'm guessing you'll like more than you'd expect. Due to a self-compressed time-line, I skipped Dream on Dreamer entirely and skimped on Scorpion’s Dance. The rest of it worked for me…some of it really, really well.
I like the bookends - 1969’s At Home (their second album; they had an eponymous German release in 1967) and Good Times from 1974 - but I’m calling 1972 their best moment, and it’s a damned good one (in my book). It took cross-reading a couple sources to figure out that the “album” Spotify shows as Inkpot & Attila is, in (apparent) fact (I’m not looking into it), three albums - i.e., Inkpot, Attila, and Eve and the Apple(?). If I hoped to “wow” anyone with Shocking Blue, I’d send them to those one, two, or three albums. I found those more open and interesting than the earliest material and a little sharper than what came later. Then again, I can listen to any of it because I just like the band. I couldn't even contain the sampler to the planned 20 songs.
To plug a couple more songs from my...three favorite albums:
At Home: "Love Buzz" (yes, that one), and "Hot Sand"
Inkpot & Attila: "Wait" and "Everything That's Mine"
Good Times: "Morning Sun" and "Mississippi Delta"
That 1988 interview, the one I keep looping back to, has this moment where the interviewer asks Veres to explain the success of “Venus.” She has no answer in that moment, but later, when the interviewer asks her why they didn’t do more songs with the same sound, she makes it clear that van Leeuwen wouldn’t do it. And maybe that’s why it all fell apart. van Leeuwen outlived them all too. Just stating a fact. Anyway, it doesn’t sound like he’s all that keen to clear things up for anyone, so there it is.
No comments:
Post a Comment